Of Pink Rags and Parrots

---

Remember those crazy cures where they used to blast the side of your face with a special lamp and then wrap a small towel under your chin and tie it on top of your head? They still do that here. Something is bothering Sasha, I’m not sure if it is a toothache or abscess or inflamed nerve or what. He explained that it is some kind of inflamed nerve around the area of his TMJ that puts pressure on his eye, ear and jaw. I don’t have enough medical experience to even posit a guess because the treatment is so bizarre. Regardless, he doesn’t seem to be in too much pain, and as a result, he wears a lovely pink and green plaid towel around his head, while walking around in his maroon and yellow plaid robe.

Last night, Alisa and Sash let their bird, Tyosha, out of its cage. Tyosha occasionally flew around, and after awhile seemed to be freaking out because it couldn’t find appropriate places to perch and couldn’t make it back to its cage. Sasha, pink and green rag and all, went to retrieve Tyosha, and Tyosha finally found a safe perch… right on top of Sasha’s head.

Take a moment to imagine a fully-grown man in his late thirties, dressed in a robe, with a pink rag wrapped vertically around his head, and on top of that rag, a little blue and gray parrot. That, in and of itself was funny enough, but when Sasha started to slowly walk toward Tyosha’s cage like a princess balancing a book on her head, and then gracefully kneeled and inclined his head to the cage, occasionally shaking his head toward the cage to encourage the bird, Alisa, Danil and I were floored from laughing so hard.

Needless to say I was fully distressed not to have access to my camera (Sasha and the bird were blocking the door to my bedroom), because that would most certainly have been a keeper.

---